Recommended Summer Reads from the Train!

Recommended Summer Reads

Authors

·         Larry Niven

·         Orson Scott Card

·         Douglas Adams

·         Andres Norton

·         John Green

·         Susan Cooper

·         Neil Gaiman

·         Meg Cabot

·         JRR Tolkein

·         Oscar Wilde

·         Stephen King

·         Tamara Pierce

·         Ian Flemming

·         Edgar Allen Poe

Books

·         Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas

·         D’artagnan Trilogy (Series), by Alexandre Dumas

·         Beauty

·         Spindles End

·         Avalon High

·         Dune, by Frank Herbert

·         Ender’s Game (Series)

·         Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Series), by Douglas Adams

·         Atlas Shrugged

·         Paper Town, by John Green

·         Hunger Games (Series)

·         Game of Thrones (Series)

·         Host, by Stephanie Meyer

·         The Name of the Wind (Series), by Patrick Rothfuss

·         Artemis Fowl (Series), by Eoin Colfer

·         Poison Princess, by Kresley Cole

·         The Odyssey

·         The Iliad

·         The Great Gatsby

·         The Beautiful Love (Series)

·         50 Shades of Grey (Series)

·         Harry Potter (Series)

·         Silver Linings Playbook

·         Perks of being a Wallflower

·         1984

·         The Color Blue

·         Mass Effect

·         Eragon, by Christopher Paolini

·         Arabian Nights

·         The Mortal Instruments (Series)

·         Complete Stories of Franz Kafka

·         Fatherland, by Robert Harris

·         Flatland

·         Mila 18, by Leon Uris

·         Catch 22, by Joseph Heller

·         White Bone

·         Ugly (Series), by Scott Westerfield

·         Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead

·         Secret Life of Bees

·         Dragon Rider

·         City of Ember (Series)

·         City of Angels

·         A Great and Terrible Beauty

·         Beautiful Creatures

·         Pendragon (Series)

·         Morganville Vampire Series

·         The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks

·         Dear John, by Nicholas Sparks

·         The Lucky One, by Nicholas Sparks

·         Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks

·         Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

·         The Gone Away World, by Nick Harkaway

·         Percy Jackson Series

·         The Forever War

·         Diskworld

·         Good Omens

Hello, everyone!

Here is our group photo from Museum Boerhaave in Leiden on our first full day in Europe. We will be getting the photo sharing site set up soon for those of you in the course, so watch for that info in addition to the course survey and final exam questions that Liz and I will be sending you tomorrow.

Drinking Habits! Culture Post

One cultural difference that I have noticed is that many people go to restaurants for just a drink. At every single restaurant I have gone to, they've asked us whether we are there to eat or to drink. I've also noticed many people just drinking at a restaurant without any food. In the US this is more common to do at a bar, not a regular restaurant.

Apartment Shopping...

I thought that Marie Curie's first apartment was very interesting.  It amazes me that she had no electricity, no heat (except coal), and still loved where she was living. That sort of speaks about where she was in life and where she wanted to be. I was also surprised that they don't have her apartment marked off and that tenants live there to this day. I wonder if they even know it was Marie's apartment?

Pantheon - Kristy

One of my favorite places to see was the Pantheon. The architecture there looks amazing and I was astounded looking at the all the statues and paintings. It was all really beautiful and was masterfully created. The graves underground were also a great experience to see. It's nice France provides a place for the great people in history and science to group all together, so if you want to visit the grave of several you can visit all of them in one location.

June 2nd - Culture Post

Language is a bigger deal here in France than it was in the Netherlands. Perhaps it stems from more nationalistic sentiments here in France, or maybe just because the Dutch are more multicultural given their population and size; but regardless it seems as though people in France are much more likeley to get peeved at you for not knowing the language than the dutch would. I can't say I blame them. In the States people get mad all the time when someone starts speaking anything other than English. Maybe we all just need to take a chill pill and eat another stroopwafel ;)

Kyle's Curie Tour

The Curie tour gave me a good idea for the types of conditions that Curie experienced during her life. The most interesting thing to me is just how expensive it was to create just a gram of radium. That just 1 gram cost $100,000 is insane, but the fact that it required 4 grams to use the radium bomb for testing just makes it even more insane. This price for the radium doesn't even include the cost of designing the machine and the parts that are used to make it. The fact that a women during this time was able to accomplish so much is astounding, but what made it even more fascinating is that her father in law was willing to watch the kids so that she could continue her research.

June 1st - Curie Tour and the Pantheon

I enjoyed the walking tour of Marie Curie's apartment's. It really helped to solidify the places and experinces portrayed in the book. It's interesting that you can find such a large chunk of one person's life in such a concentrated area. However, I suppose thats true for most of us. The pantheon was an impressive building, and of course we saw the curies there as well. Regardless of their reasoning, I really like how the french have not only immortalized, but also glorified portions of their history in statues and paintings.

Kyle's French Culture Post

The first thing I noticed in Paris is the abundance of cars and how much less bike friendly the city is in general. After being in Amsterdam where nearly every thing that could be used to lock a bike to had at least 5 locked to it. Here in Paris there is actually some room to sit on the railing. Along these same lines while there are bike paths here they are much less utilized and don't really meld into the roads nearly as well. Overall this gives the city a much different feel and also makes traveling via bike around the city harder. They compensate by this by having their tram system that runs pretty much everywhere in the city.

French Culture insights, ect. ect.

Yes the title is French culture but let us first have a quick and contemplative mourning of no longer being in easy access of the Belgium Belgium waffle. Internally I am mourning such a mouth watering delicacy. The Belgium's knew how to make a waffle. As what is seemingly normal for Europeans traffic is one of the scarier things one can experience. It is right up there as a staring contest with a cobra. One have much confidence in doing things which I believe is the Europeans secret to navigating their traffic system. Though I greatly appreciate their public transportation system; the squeals of the metros in Paris is ear-splitting, and sometimes the smell of human lesser fragrant odors pluming into ones nose with the expected ammonia. Though that now shows why they wear scarves, to hide ones face. I now own two. I just need to remember to wear them. Another thing on Paris that is less, icky, is the couples. One can view a bout of "p.d.a." while people walking. In parks the cute couple walking in the parks holding each others arms, sitting on benches and feeding ducks. Fresh flower shops on every other block adds to the warm and fuzzy picture. No wonder Paris is the city of lovers. I absolutely adore how well pedestrians get around, barring the traffic can get around. Again what is needed is a sense of confidence. If one does not walk with purpose or becomes hesitant about whether to cross or not it causes issues with those with vehicles. It is not about being polite when it comes to being a pedestrian, nor is it always about the rules. It is about going. As the lady said on the tram in Amsterdam, "Just push." As I spend more time here I am more confident in my ability to get around and not being ran over. I will miss being in a place that was constructed with pedestrians in mind rather that that of personal vehicles like it is in the United States. I would like to also mention the different smells. I have noticed different ambient smells in each country. Each very distinctive in each country. With the exception of the trams, fish stalls, and some random areas Paris smells sweet almost. Maybe its the perfume. Belgium, though was rainy so that may have had an influence, but it smelled like a sour metal and Amsterdam smelled warm, it may also have been dependent on weather, since it was our warmest and sunniest days on the trip thus far. Though Paris was not my favorite, sorry Dr Stanley, I will miss Europe, again. The culture is worth attempting to immerse ones self in.

Cultural Learnings of Europe for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of United States

One of the more interesting observations that I've made during our trqvels of the last few weeks was the impressive amount of languages that the average person here speaks. While being bilingual in the states puts you ahead of the curve, over here it's not unusual to run into people who speak many more. One day when we went to lunch in a Brussels sanwhich shop the man behind the counter quickly cycled through 4 or 5 languages to see which one we were most comfortable speaking in with him.  This really is quite astounding to me. Also, France doesn't use the standard qwerty keyboard setup, which made this take much longer to type than it should have taken.

the Curie

I knew about Marie Curie, many have. Pierre Curie is taught in schools as a background character if taught at all but the love story of Pierre and Marie is more epic and romantic than Romeo and Juliet (as anyone who actually know what is entailed in Romeo and Juliet can attest to). Marie was helped greatly by the men in her life helping support her and working with her. Pierre who eventually became her husband supported and worked with her. I thought that learning about Pierre Curie through the walking tour and the text was very interesting. Yes Marie was important because being a woman scientist, one of the first, but just because she was important doesn't mean we should ignore Pierre. Maybe learning of their love story may even get more people interested in the Curie's history overall!

European Culture Post.

Something I found interesting in France compared to the other countries we've visited is that there are times resteraunts wont serve food. At these times they only serve food. Also when you walk into a cafe they ask you right away if youe drinking or eating.

Emily's European culture

One thing that I noticed was that over here in Europe yellow mustard is rare. They also don't seem to eat pickles either. Another thing I noticed is they don't have Mexican food.

Marie Curie Tour Post

Something I found inyeresting on the tour was that Marie Curie hired about forty women in her lab. This wasn't common for the time, and think it showed be admired. She made advancing the the scientific careers of women one of her priorities.

Emily's Pantheon Experience

I really enjoyed seeing the Pantheon. It was neat to see Marie and Pierre Currie's grave. Even seeing Victor Hugo's grave was awesome. It is neat that Marie is the first woman to be buried in the Pantheon of of her own works.

European Culture

Between the three places that we've visited, one piece of European culture that I've noticed is the way that the different countries interact with you once they know they are talking to a foreigner. In the Netherlands the native people treated you with warm hospitality, loved to joke around, and are more surprised than angry when you can only speak a limited number of their language. Belgium was in the middle and didn't show too much emotion either way if you didn't know their culture or language. France though is on the other side of the scale. While some Parisians joke around, most are quick to give you annoyed stares or become irritated and snippy when you ask if they speak English. And in a way I can understand this since we're the same way in the U.S. It's hard to come into a country where you don't know the language and expect them to speak in a language other then their native tongue. In  all though all three countries were different in their reactions from the others.

Adam's cultural post

The hardest thing for me to get my head around here is the act of tipping at restaurants. Do I tip? Do it not tip? How much do I tip? I just found out today though that it is customary to tip  10%. What I am loving the most here is the food! Even the mashed potatoes are to die for! Just being in Europe for the past two weeks makes me want to move here, the old architecture make me speechless because of its tremendous being.

Le Museé Curie 01/06/13

It was fascinating to visit the Musée Curie and see all of the displays about how radium was used in a fashion that would be considered haphazard to say the least by today's standards. From cosmetics to fishing reels, it was added to just about everything because of its almost mystical presence within culture at the time.

Adam's pantheon post

I really enjoyed the visit to the pantheon today. I really enjoyed the visit because I got to see my favorite author's, alexandre dumas, grave. I also liked learning that the curie's tombs are lined with lead because they are still radio active.